FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                        CRM
MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1996                              (202) 514-2007
                                             TDD  (202) 514-1888 


            FORMER MEMBER OF NAZI-SPONSORED LITHUANIAN
               MOBILE KILLING UNIT IS DENATURALIZED


     Washington, D.C. -- The Department of Justice announced
today that a Gulfport, Florida man who admitted serving in an
infamous Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian battalion that perpetrated
numerous mass killings of Jews and others during World War II,
has been denaturalized after agreeing to relinquish his United
States citizenship and leaving the country.

     On May 28, United States District Judge Steven D. Merryday
of the United States District Court for the Middle District of
Florida, Tampa Division, entered a Consent Judgment and Order
stripping Juozas (a/k/a Joseph) Budreika, 79, of his naturalized
United States citizenship.  The decision was received by the
Department today.  

     Budreika admitted in an agreement settling a denaturalization
 action brought against him in September 1994 by
the Criminal Division's Office of Special Investigations (OSI)
that he illegally procured his United States citizenship and that
he was not a person of good moral character because of his
service in the 2nd/12th Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft (Protective
Detachment) Battalion, and because he willfully misrepresented
and concealed this service in applying for United States
citizenship.

     The 2nd/12th Battalion was armed, sponsored and controlled
by Nazi Germany.  During 1941 and 1942, the 2nd/12th Battalion
murdered thousands of unarmed Jews and other civilians in
Lithuania and Byelorussia (now Belarus) because of their race,
religion, political beliefs, or national origin.  In Byelorussia,
the Battalion functioned largely as a mobile killing unit, waging
a town-by-town hunt for Jews and suspected communists.

     Under the terms of the agreement, Budreika, a retired cook,
agreed to depart the United States permanently and assented to
the entry of an order revoking his United States citizenship. 
Budreika left the United States for Lithuania by commercial
airliner on May 14.

     OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum said Budreika's
denaturalization and permanent departure from the United States
are the latest results of OSI's ongoing efforts to identify and
take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution
residing in this country.  "The cancellation of Juozas Budreika's
ill-gotten U.S. citizenship is another important law enforcement
victory on behalf of the victims of wartime Nazi oppression,"
Rosenbaum said.  Fifty-six Nazi persecutors have now been
stripped of U.S. citizenship -- three of them within the past two
weeks alone -- and 47 have now been removed from the United
States since OSI began operations in 1979.  There are more than
300 persons currently under investigation by OSI, according to
Rosenbaum.
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